Pair Programming
by I.C. Weener
Summary: You know what they say. Two aggressive alien viral pandemics are better than one.
1. Chapter 1

_"Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden assiduously avoided, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here."_

\- The Architect, The Matrix Reloaded

 _"I gave it a cold."_

\- Jeff Goldblum, Independence Day

* * *

Gai looked into Inori's frightened and saddened eyes as the violet crystals spread over her face. The Apocalypse Virus surged through her veins, covering her in a shimmering cocoon of purple meteorite shards. The war for control of her body was over, and all she could do now was peacefully regenerate into her true form.

"That takes care of our butterfly," Gai chuckled to himself. "Now to punish the rat."

He turned away from Inori's massive jewel shell and pointed his right palm downward. A circle made of tiny green pixels appeared on the floor, opening a flat doorway to a virtual dimension. A single figure rose out of the void on his feet. Standing in the dim violet light of Apocalypse crystals with long emerald tresses completely hiding his eyes, the figure was strongly built and vaguely clothed. It was as if Gai had summoned a digital copy of himself.

"The other one is being held in Lab C," Gai said to his mysterious counterpart. "She's the best host we could find for the Data Infection. She's a wild one compared to Mana's vessel, but I trust you'll be able to perform the honors."

The figure nodded in determined silence.

"Do be quick about her," Gai said ominously. "You know how the queens get the longer they have to wait."

The figure walked out of the chamber like a stream of electrons gliding through a quartz circuit.

* * *

Soldiers rushed through the basement of the complex with rifles in their arms. They secretly infiltrated the building on orders to stop the madmen controlling GHQ from unleashing the Apocalypse Virus at any cost. Their maps said the basement should have been completely empty, but they found something unexpected just under the complex's science wing. Two things, to be exact.

The first was some sort of viral crystal garden forming a large cocoon. Beside it was a large deposit of silicon roughly shaped like sphere. The soldiers advanced cautiously, having no idea what they were about to unleash.

The fragile amethyst cocoon began to crumble from the heat of their flashlights. The structure broke into thousands of purple glass shards, revealing the radiant outline of Inori crouched in its center. As she slowly rose to feet, the yolk glued to her naked form dried into clothing. She wore an outfit resembling a purple ballet gown with a crystal arrangement decorating her pale pink hair. Mana had returned.

The silicon cocoon slowly melted, revealing Tsugumi's body preserved in a nest of power cables underneath. She rose off of her knees as she stirred out of her idle slumber. She wore a revealing LED-studded black dress that hugged her body like a one-piece swimsuit and dangled down her arms and legs like mermaid fins. The outfit had virtually no front, covering only the outer halves of her chest and leaving everything down the middle exposed. She had a glowing mark shaped like a power symbol around her navel. The tips of her long, straight black hair were highlighted with metallic green streaks, and she wore small square microchip decorations tucked above her ears. Tiny streams of electricity shimmered through the veins in her skin as she breathed, cooled by the light beads of sweat trickling from her pores. A dozen holographic grids encircled her wherever she moved, casting her in a constant digital glow.

"Ah. This clone vessel feels great on me. GHQ really knows what to get a girl for her birthday," Mana cheerfully said as she glanced herself over. "How's that ghetto mink they fixed up for you fit, Venera?"

"Optimally," the dark-haired woman next to her said with a relaxed purr, analyzing her own vital signs and biometrics on her dim floating screens.

The soldiers quickly formed a defensive line in front of the two alien beauties. Mana and Venera narrowed their eyes at each other, then toward the intruders.

Mana hopped down from her crystal prison with the weight of a feather. Tiny purple stalagmites rose up in each footprint left by her slippers.

Venera fearlessly walked out of the molten silicon pool and toward the battalion. Her skirts and her sleeves whisked across the floor like the trail of a fiber optic wedding gown as she moved.

"Hey, isn't that my old concert dress?" Mana gave Venera an accusing glare.

"Just the basic pattern, but I enhanced this version for myself. The material I used is closer to the mission suit my host body was wearing when she was captured. It keeps my core temperature down while amplifying my signal," the alien being who used to be Tsugumi answered calmly. She crossed her hands over her navel, letting her sleeves dangle in front of her legs. "It's rather nice."

The soldiers in front of them raised their rifles and locked their sights.

"Ready to show off for these boys, you recycled bucket of bolts?" Mana sneered playfully.

"More than you are, you test tube-grown meat socket," Venera answered back with a green tinge of jealousy.

The soldiers fired their rifles, and died horrifically for their mistake. Mana waved her fingers, protecting herself from the bullets with a honeycomb shield of purple crystals. She unleashed a wave of energy spores that infected half of the troops in the battalion, instantly transforming them into purple petrified corpses.

Venera disintegrated the bullets aimed at her with the radiation from her holographic grids. The fibers of her skirt and sleeves stretched across the ground like an infestation of black weeds and viciously stabbed into the back of each soldier's helmet. She instantly hotwired their minds with a mass RegEdit and set them into an Auto-Destroy mode. When she yanked her wires back out of their heads, the remaining soldiers turned their weapons on each other and fought to the death for their queen's amusement.

"Cute trick," Mana said while she watched Venera's worshippers systematically delete themselves. "Okay, Brainy. So how do you think we should split up this planet?"

Venera smiled back at her, happy to provide her rival with tactical advice.

"I suggest you spread through the active ecological sites first. I'll infect the major technology centers."

"Sounds fun," Mana snickered. "We'll be two Apocalypses in one."

* * *

 _Author's note: Do you like my cyber sorceress?_

 _Author's note 2: If the timeline continues on its current course, I predict all of humanity will be driven to extinction_ _ _in six months_ and two distinct strains of intelligent life will evolve in its place. The Earth will be ruled by dual hive queens in relative harmony for roughly a decade before one gets greedy and starts creeping her viral pattern into the other's territory. The planet will fall into an endless dystopian civil war over territory and natural resources fought between the Inoribros and the Tsugumiloids_


	2. Chapter 2

" _There is a point where we needed to stop and we have clearly passed it, but let's keep going and see what happens."_

\- Internet proverb

* * *

Fire raged across the battlefield. The wreckage of GHQ and Funeral Parlor machines alike were piled in a mountainous smoldering junk heap. Mana and Venera stood side by side proudly overseeing the disaster, their black and violet dresses blowing in the scorching wind.

A pile of rubble that used to be a GHQ Mission Control station rattled near Venera. A bruised and bloodied hand reached up from the ruins. The figure buried underneath pulled themselves out of their metal grave.

Kenji cradled his shattered left arm with his right. He hobbled toward Venera with hatred in his eyes, cursing her through his teeth.

"You still haven't won, you little bitch! You think dressing up like a bimbo for Halloween and waving some glow sticks around makes you better than me? You couldn't crack your way through a coffee maker designed by my mom! I'll make sure you-"

The cables on Venera's skirts flung out and impaled Kenji through the arms, chest, and neck, ending his complaints abruptly.

"Obsolete units like you have no place in the new world," she scowled as she watched him die, crossing her arms in disappointment. "Your incessant feedback irritates my audio receptors."

Venera withdrew her spiked cables and let Kenji's body crumple to the ground.

Elsewhere in the burning ruins, an Endlave escape pod opened with a hydraulic gasp. The red-suited pilot threw off her helmet and climbed out of the crash wreckage only using her arms. Ayase crawled through the fire on her stomach, dragging her paralyzed legs behind her.

She stopped in front of a pair of violet ballet slippers and black disco boots. She looked up at Mana and Venera, staring at her with their glowing amethyst and emerald eyes. They both had the same idea.

Venera knelt in front of Ayase and nestled her palms around Ayase's cheeks. Mana quietly leaned over Ayase's back and began prodding through her pilot suit, searching for the damaged portions of her spine. Ayase winced as tiny crystals emerged from Mana's fingertips and mended the old gaps in her vertebrae. Venera stroked her cheeks to comfort her, while the fiber optic threads of her sleeves reached over Ayase's back and started linking the hundreds of delicate nerve endings to the reinforced sections of her spine.

"Tsugumi, this isn't you. Come to your senses," Ayase pleaded weakly. "You can't let it end like this."

Venera moved her left hand behind Ayase's head. Ayase's eyes shrank in shock and flickered with green pixels as Venera's index finger pressed lightly into the base of her neck, wiring Venera to her brain stem. With some mental tweaking, Ayase's terrified expression changed to a look of tranquil joy. Venera moved her hand back to Ayase's cheek, petting her softly.

Mana finished her viral surgery and climbed off of Ayase's back. Venera withdrew her sleeves and stood up in front of her.

Ayase slowly staggered on to her feet for the first time in years. She looked into Venera's eyes, thanking her with suppressed obedience.

"I'll do anything you want, Tsugumi."

"Why is she still calling you by your host's name?" Mana asked, quirking her eyebrow.

"Probably just a memory glitch," Venera replied lightheartedly. "I think I like her better with it. It gives her a certain charm."

Venera turned her attention back to her new subordinate.

"We're going to need pilots like you for the army, Ayase. Our new extermination machines are almost ready to roll out and you're the best one to control them. Mana just needs to finish constructing their armor."

"Excuse me?" Mana scoffed through her nose. " _My_ armor compounds work just fine. _You're_ the one still figuring out how to wire the internal gizmos."

"I would have already finished my work if you took the time to learn a thing or two about equipment hardpoints," Venera shot back.

The alien queens glared at each other before they remembered Ayase was still vacantly waiting for her orders. They put their disagreements aside and turned their heads toward her.

"There's a place for you in the hive," Venera said. "Make yourself at home until we need you again."

Ayase gave her a friendly nod and calmly walked away through the inferno.

Venera and Mana continued to glance over the battlefield. Mana's eyes looked past all of the destruction and happened to spot on a lone figure huddled under the bombed out wall of an old building. It was Shu, exhausted and disoriented from chaos he had witnessed.

He was ripe for the taking.

As Mana slipped away behind her, Venera scanned the surroundings in her own curiosity. Buildings and mech frames were toppled everywhere. Dozens of soldiers were lying in the ruins. Her heat sensors helped her filter the wounded from the dying.

Venera's search ended when she identified Daryl sitting propped up against his crashed Endlave. A quick analysis of his physical dimensions showed he was suitable for her needs.

Mana lowered herself in a slow ballet split into Shu's lap, tilting her head coyly as she smiled into his eyes. Her hand stroked over his ear, spreading tiny fragments of the crystal virus down his face through her touch. She tucked her chin on his shoulder, cooing softly in his ear.

"Ready to become my Adam, brother?"

Verena crawled over Daryl's weary body on all fours, sitting up on her knees so her eyes met his. Her hands pried the collar of his flight suit and carefully tore the material down his chest. Her palm slipped through the opening and rested against his sore pectoral, sending tiny electrical fibers into his heart.

"Hey there, human," she playfully whispered. "What do you say we exchange binary inputs?"

"Inori, no… This is wrong!" Shu revulsed in horror from Mana's advances. Mana called toward the wrecked Endlave several yards away.

"I need a hotfix over here, Venera."

Venera reached backwards and sent a bundle of neural cable extending from her sleeve. The wires found their way around Shu's head and made short work of his carnal inhibitions. She retracted her wires after a few seconds and continued her own advances on Daryl.

"Settle down, Tsugumi!" Daryl shouted in resistance. "What are you even doing to me? This isn't the place for this!"

"Mana, give me a hardware upgrade," Venera said over her shoulder.

Mana flicked a handful of microscopic crystal spores Daryl's way, striking him with perfect accuracy along the right temple. Jagged crystal formations rapidly spread across the right half of his scalp and deep into his skull, eroding the part of his brain controlling his free will and making him more vulnerable to certain radio signals.

Shu looked straight into Mana's smirking face with his neon green eyes. All of his rewired thoughts were now obsessively focused on her. He was desperate for her, craving for her.

Daryl sighed and shook away the dull ache in his head. He looked up at Venera to reveal his pulsating violet eyes, hopelessly seduced to her will.

"Oh, _Mana_ …" Shu murmured as his arms lovingly embraced his queen.

"I await your instructions, Lady Venera," Daryl stoically said to his. Venera moved her fingers away from his heart and urgently ripped his pilot suit all the way down the center with her hands.

Mana's silhouette descended over Shu's in the dark orange glow of the ruins, while Venera's weaved quietly around Daryl's. Flames danced around them like intertwining tongues.

* * *

 _Author's note: Pittsburgh didn't make it to the Super Bowl, so I guess I'll just doom the human race to utter annihilation._


	3. Intermezzo: Repogumi

_Author's note: The following takes place after the first part of chapter 1 where Gai muses diabolically to himself, but before the second part where Bad Tsugumi activates and tech-noirs a bunch of dudes._

* * *

Gai walked through a chamber filled with the flora and fauna of a looming digital catastrophe. Bright green fiber optics dangling from the ceiling in sheets. Pools of quartz, zinc, and silicon springing up on the floors, sparkling with electricity. Air filled with constant holographic contrast. Walls painted in binary digits that refreshed every millisecond and scrolled through infinity. A biological composite of complex human tissue systems well on her way to becoming the permanent host of the Apocalypse Virus Delta. She went by the call sign Black Swan, also known as Tsugumi. Age 19. Japanese origin. Blood type B.

Tsugumi stood with her arms folded behind her head and tied to a circuit board dangling from the ceiling. A helmet that could have passed for a small flying saucer engulfed her eyes and the top of her head, leaving her nose, lips, and strands of her black hair exposed. Hundreds of dense twinkling wires were hanging from her body, sending viral signals through her skintight mission suit and obscuring spots where the black and gray material had been split open, forming a bridal gown of electron-charged silver tinsel around her. All the hardware was a temporary fixture until the software was stable enough to take over on its own.

Gai's virtual doppelganger was currently in quarantine. He knelt at Tsugumi's side silent and motionless. His statuesque features were camouflaged under the shadows and data fibers.

Tsugumi lifted her head at the sound of Gai stepping toward her. Her nose twitched and sniffed the air as she grew accustomed to her new senses. She smiled once she knew who he was.

"Venera. I trust you're comfortable?" Gai asked coldly.

"Mm. It's pretty roomy in here," Tsugumi answered in a cheerful tone. "I don't know where you dug this girl up, but she must have a pretty high IQ for all of my data to fit in her with space to spare. She must have been some kind of bookworm. Maybe a mechanic?"

"Intelligence officer, actually," Gai said. "I thought she would be suitable for your needs. Our spies have been tracking her abilities for some time."

"Tech junkie," Tsugumi giggled under her breath. "Well, she's certainly getting plenty of the stuff she likes with me in here."

"Would you have preferred a simpler host?" Gai asked with a passing thought.

"This one's perfect," Tsugumi shook her head. "You know how much I love being geeky chicks."

"This isn't how you normally talk, Venera." Gai narrowed his eyes.

"I must be assimilating the host's dialect." Tsugumi shrugged innocently. "She and I are becoming indistinguishable."

Gai leaned closer to Tsugumi's face. His eyes almost touched the rim of her cable-covered visor. He could hear the dull resonance of the hardwired electron streams passing between her ears.

"And there have been no signs of resistance?" he asked.

"Are you kidding?" Tsugumi said. "I'm partitioning a third of my resources just to keep her firewalled. She's been screaming in here ever since the first data injection. She's been quieting down when I don't have her on Mute, though. It won't be long until the last of her neural waves are infected and all of her reformats as me. Then I won't have to pretend to be a real girl anymore."

"You're too much like your sister," Gai murmured. "Bragging about how much fun you're going to have once you're completely revived."

Tsugumi slyly turned her head toward the virtual duplicate kneeling beside her.

"Oh, your proxy and I have already been having plenty of _that_."

She glanced forward so she faced Gai again.

"How is Mana, anyway?"

"She's getting her beauty sleep," he said bluntly.

"Cheater," Tsugumi snorted, curving her lips into a slant. "You gave her a head start over me. We were supposed to celebrate Christmas together. One bacterial strain to another."

"You will," Gai said with a hint of encouragement in an otherwise empty voice. "Eve always takes longer to awaken than you, Lilith."

He glanced toward the figure kneeling on the floor, nodding only once.

"Continue at her. The next contamination will trigger her stasis."

Gai turned his back toward Tsugumi while his copy silently rose to his feet. The virtual Gai tenderly stroked Tsugumi's cheek while the fingers of his other hand fused into the cable sockets on the back of her visor, amplifying them to their highest broadcast speed. Tsugumi nibbled her lower lip and purred as her brain was assaulted with viral code.

The copy moved his hands lower and sank his fingers into the wires near her waist. Tsugumi scratched the back of her ankle with her opposite foot, before lifting her leg with her knee tucked in.

"Patch it through my back door this time," she said with a playful smirk. "She's got her guard down. She'll have no idea what hit her."

The copy obediently disappeared behind her. The sound of gently tearing spandex could be heard within the rustle of plastic wires.

Gai walked out of the chamber, leaving Tsugumi to her Earthly demise.


End file.
